Poll Question 083 - After Half-Life 2: EP3 who would you like to play as?

I think Barney would be the most interesting character for me for the reasons you describe. Being inside the overwatch system, following certain schedules, looking away when the situation requires it and being violent towards citizens for the sake of maintaining the Combine’s trust. A pre-Gordon Freeman City 17 has so much to offer.

I’d be interested in playing as a combine soldier in a campaign consisting of missions to undermine and destroy the resistance movement.

It’s got to be Gordon really, because he’s not so much a character as he is an avatar for the player.
But if it had to be someone else I think a Vortigaunt could provide some new and interesting gameplay. I can picture it now:
“Cecil, we need 5 dishes of diced headcrab, pronto!”
“Cecil, the generators broken, can you go and give it a jolt?”
“Cecil, can you recharge my iPod for me?”

It is likely that Valve will continue with Gordon.
But I find the idea of characters intriguing.
Barney in pre-HL2 C17 has quite some interesting possibilities as well as his leadership role once the revolution begins.
A vortigaunt is interesting as well.
But perhaps presenting a new character, with new a new stories and abilities would be fun as well.

I’d like to play as an AI construct , perhaps one made by Eli or Alyx Vance , the same way as D.O.G was.
Throughout the game you would not get new weapons but rather new upgrades and new shells (roboctic bodies) , perhaps acquired through hostiles takeovers .. that is to say , you killed/disabled a robotic foe and then hacked into them and overwrote their AI with your own.
Play as Rollermines ( like D.O.G.’s Ball ), Manhacks , Striders , Transhuman Combine Cyborg Soldiers , Turrets , Combine Gunships , Hunters and Stalkers or any other Robotic or Cybernectic foe.

Maybe you hopped from shell to shell throughout the game , like a spirit possesing different bodies , or you just temporarily loaned a robotic shell and then returned to your own main shell.
A shell you could either upgrade yourself or have NPC you encounter upgrade for you.
One possibility might be that you could cannibalize parts from disabled foes.
A scanners light and zoomcamera , a manhacks thermal vision (i’m just guessing that they see infrared) and/or it’s blades ( a robotic arm with blades could provide for some very intense and visceral melee combat with zombies and other fleshy meatbags ) , the electrical shock attack of a rollermine or it’s magnetic abilities .. maybe it could let you attract metal object like the gravity gun would , but in a more limited way or maybe it could allow you to stick to metal surfaces allowing you to crawl up metal pillars and cling to metal ceilings. Maybe Combine cyborgs have access codes/equipment to gain cyberspace access to combine mainframe .. maybe you could battle combine AI’s or Glados.

You could also experience the regular halflife 2 enimes from a new perspective - that of a robots.
A headcrab is a very small threat when it can’t couple with your head (since you have no biological parts) and it’s poison is useless against you , but on the other hand rollermines would flock to you, like bee’s on honey and their electrical attack could be devastating to you.
The fact that you would be robotic and not organic in nature could also be used to create gameplay situation where you need to team up with a biological NPC and support each other.
You could be lifted over obstacles into new areas by an electromagnetic crane , controled by your human/vortigaunt friendly NPC and you could hack through gates , pass areas with high radiation / deadly gases , and they could disable energygrids/magnetic fields/dangerous electrical wires you couldn’t pass and maybe if you weren’t waterproof they could swim to certain areas , that you could not reach.

From a NPC interaction point of view, a robot/AI could be very easy to work with.
It doesn’t seem weird that a robot doesn’t speak .. but people might begin to wonder why Gordon never says anything. NPC’s also don’t have to speak with the player to give them information , as you could pickup messages over wireless radio connection and wired links and it wouldn’t be weird that they were displayed as text on screen. So a lot less voiceacting is needed .. could be much easier for modder to create new stories for, as voiceacting in many mods is usually a letdown - with a robot main character they wouldn’t need all the voiceacting.

Being disembodied and non-human also grants a lot of freedom for the developer as they can remake the character anyway they want and still make it believable. They could die .. and then simply be rebuilt later or transferred into another shell by a friendly NPC , have their memory erased , be taken over by hostile AI’s hacking them , and be forced to watch as they slaughter friends . lots of storytelling options you wouldn’t have with a human.

Or better yet HL3 could be like Point of View for HL1 in where all the characters living or dead play a part in 1 game giving the player certain events to play each character through say 3 levels each totaling 2 hours each character.
Kinda like that recent movie Vantage Point one event told from many prospectives.
Say the Characters from all the games in One game showing what sorta part they played in the whole chain reaction of the storyline.
Like the G-Man whats his story & what were those Areas in Black Mesa in HL1 that Gordon couldnt get into too.
Maybe we’l even see what made the Black Mesa Administor Doctor Breen go Bad.
Still i wanna be Alyx Vance because she could be very well the Next …….